The Vagina Monologues is an episodic play written by Eve Ensler which ran at the Off-BroadwayWestside Theatre after a limited run at HERE Arts Center in 1996. Charles Isherwood of The New York Times called the play "probably the most important piece of political theater of the last decade."[1] In 2011, Ensler was awarded the Isabelle Stevenson Award at the 65th Tony Awards, which recognizes an individual from the theater community who has made a substantial contribution of volunteered time and effort on behalf of humanitarian, social service, or charitable organizations.[2] Ensler originally starred in the production which was produced by David Stone, Nina Essman, Dan Markley, The Araca Group, Willa Shalit and the West Side Theater. When she left the play, it was recast with three celebrity monologists. The play has been staged internationally, and a television version featuring Ensler was produced by cable TV channel HBO. In 1998, Ensler and others, including Willa Shalit, a producer of the Westside Theatre production, launched V-Day, a global non-profit movement that has raised over US$100million for groups working to end violence against women and girls anti-violence through benefits of The Vagina Monologues.[3]

The Vagina Monologues is made up of a varying number of monologues read by a varying number of women (initially, Eve Ensler performed every monologue herself, with subsequent performances featuring three actresses, and more recent versions featuring a different actress for every role). Each of the monologues deals with an aspect of the feminine experience, touching on matters such as sex, love, rape, menstruation, female genital mutilation, masturbation, birth, orgasm, the various common names for the vagina, or simply as a physical aspect of the body. A recurring theme throughout the piece is the vagina as a tool of female empowerment, and the ultimate embodiment of individuality.

Some monologues include:

I Was Twelve, My Mother Slapped Me: a chorus describing many young women's and girls' first menstrual period.

My Angry Vagina, in which a woman humorously rants about injustices wrought against the vagina, such as tampons, douches, and the tools used by OB/GYNs.

My Vagina Was My Village, a monologue compiled from the testimonies of Bosnian women subjected to rape camps.

The Little Coochie Snorcher That Could, in which a woman recalls memories of traumatic sexual experiences in her childhood and a self-described "positive healing" sexual experience in her adolescent years with an older woman. This particular skit has sparked outrage, numerous controversies and criticisms due to its content, among which the most famous is the Robert Swope controversy (see below). In the original version, she is 13, but later versions changed her age to 16. It also originally included the line, "If it was rape, it was a good rape", which was removed from later versions.

Reclaiming Cunt, a piece narrated by a woman who illustrates that the word "cunt" itself is a lovely word despite its disconcerting connotations.

The Woman Who Loved to Make Vaginas Happy, in which a sex worker for women discusses the intriguing details of her career and her love of giving women pleasure. In several performances it often comes at the end of the play, literally climaxing with a vocal demonstration of a "triple orgasm".

Because He Liked to Look At It, in which a woman describes how she had thought her vagina was ugly and had been embarrassed to even think about it, but changed her mind because of a sexual experience with a man named Bob who liked to spend hours looking at it.

I Was There in the Room, a monologue in which Eve Ensler describes the birth of her granddaughter.

Every year a new monologue is added to highlight a current issue affecting women around the world. Every V-Day thousands of local benefit productions are staged to raise funds for local groups, shelters, and crisis centers working to end violence against women. In 2003, for example, Ensler wrote a new monologue about the plight of women in Afghanistan under Taliban rule. This monologue is known as "Under the Burqa".

Eve Ensler wrote the first draft of the monologues in 1996 (there have been several revisions since) following interviews she conducted with 200 women about their views on sex, relationships, and violence against women. The interviews began as casual conversations with her friends, who then brought up anecdotes they themselves had been told by other friends; this began a continuing chain of referrals. In an interview with Women.com, Ensler said that her fascination with vaginas began because of "growing up in a violent society".[4] "Women's empowerment is deeply connected to their sexuality." She also stated, "I'm obsessed with women being violated and raped, and with incest. All of these things are deeply connected to our vaginas."

Ensler wrote the piece to "celebrate the vagina". Ensler states that in 1998, the purpose of the piece changed from a celebration of vaginas and femininity to a movement to stop violence against women.

In 2004, the first all-transgender performance of The Vagina Monologues was held. The monologues were read by eighteen notable transgender women, and a new monologue revolving around the experiences and struggles of transgender women was included.[5]

The play was also adapted into a Marathi play called Yonichya Maneechya Gujagoshti by feminist writer-activist Vandana Khare in the year 2009.[6]

The Vagina Monologues is the cornerstone of the V-Day movement, whose participants stage benefit performances of the show and/or host other related events in their communities. Such events take place worldwide each year between 1 February and 30 April. The performances generally benefit rape crisis centers and shelters for women, as well as similar resource centers for women. During the rest of the year the play is performed in thousands of communities and colleges worldwide.[7]

On 21 February 2004 Miss Ensler in conjunction with Jane Fonda and Deep Stealth Productions produced and directed the first all-transgender[8] performance of The Vagina Monologues, with readings by eighteen notable transgender women and including a new monologue documenting the experiences of transgender women. It debuted in connection with "LA V-DAY Until the Violence Stops" with monologues documenting the violence against transgender women. Since that debut, many university and college productions have included these three "Transgender Monologues". Beautiful Daughters (2006) is a documentary about the cast of the first performance by transgender women.[9]

Notwithstanding those additions, in 2015 a student organization at Mount Holyoke College canceled its annual performance of the play for being, in its opinion, insufficiently inclusive of transgender people. "At its core", Erin Murphy, the president of the school's theater group, said, "the show offers an extremely narrow perspective on what it means to be a woman … Gender is a wide and varied experience, one that cannot simply be reduced to biological or anatomical distinctions, and many of us who have participated in the show have grown increasingly uncomfortable presenting material that is inherently reductionist and exclusive." The traditionally all-female college had begun admitting students who identified as female the previous year, but the college denied that had anything to do with the decision to discontinue the annual performances of the play.[10]

Two years earlier, Columbia University's V-Day decided to stage the play with a cast entirely of non-white women. That decision, too, was controversial.[11]

The Vagina Monologues has been criticized by some within the feminist movement, including pro-sex feminists and individualist feminists.[13] Sex-positive feminist Betty Dodson, author of several books about female sexuality, saw the play as having a narrow and restrictive view of sexuality.[14] Individualist feminist Wendy McElroy stated that the play "equates men with 'the enemy' – heterosexual love with violence".[15][16] McElroy also identified problems with the work's lesbian bias, stating "A play that claims to unveil the truth about vaginas but, somehow, overlooks the salutary role men play in most women's sexuality has no credibility."[17]

Kim Hall further criticizes the play, particularly the sections dealing with women in the Third World, for contributing to "colonialist conceptions of non-Western women."[18] Although she supports frank discussions about sex, Hall rescales many of the same critiques leveled by feminists of color at white privilege among second-wave feminists: "premature white feminist assumptions and celebrations of a global 'sisterhood.'"[18]

In 2000, Robert Swope, a conservative contributor to a Georgetown University newspaper, The Hoya, wrote an article critical of the play.[20] He suggested there was a contradiction between the promotion of rape awareness on V-Day and the monologue "The Little Coochie Snorcher That Could", in which an adult woman recalls being given alcohol and statutorily raped at 16 by a 24-year-old woman[21] as a positive, healing experience, ending the segment with the proclamation "It was a good rape." Swope also noted the double standards involved, asking "why is rape only wrong when a man commits it, but when it's by a woman committed against another woman, who just happens to be 13-years-old, it is celebrated and a university club sponsors it?"[17] Outcry from the play's supporters resulted in Swope's being fired from the staff of The Hoya, before the piece was even run. Swope had previously criticized the play in an article he wrote entitled "Georgetown Women's Center: Indispensable Asset or Improper Expenditure?" His termination received critical editorial coverage in The Wall Street Journal,[22]Salon,[23]National Review,[24]The Atlantic Monthly, The Washington Times, The Weekly Standard, and by Wendy McElroy of iFeminists.[25]

In 2002 the first major proposal to host The Vagina Monologues at Gonzaga University, resulted in a decision by then–President Father Robert Spitzer, S.J., to ban the performance. After a vote, the Gonzaga Board of Trustees supported Spitzer's decision. Father Spitzer retired as president in 2009.[26]

In 2010, students accompanied by faculty and the Women's and Gender Studies department again proposed The Vagina Monologues performance on campus. After deliberation and discussion among Gonzaga's administration, it was reported on 19 March 2010 that Interim President Thayne McCulloh, although in support of the Monologues, would uphold the decision of Father Spitzer's 2002 ban. McCulloh stated in an email to the University that he “could not ignore the historical context that informs review of the current proposal.” As a result of Dr. McCulloh's decision, the supporters of The Vagina Monologues held on campus protests the day the play was originally scheduled to be performed. The play was performed instead at an off-campus location.[27]

In March 2011, it was announced that for the first time in Gonzaga University's history, The Vagina Monologues will be allowed on campus. (Palmer, 2011) The women and gender studies program, the English department, the sociology department, the Honors Program, and the Institute for Hate Studies all teamed up to sponsor Monologues, Dialogues, & Stories, Interdisciplinary Academic Discussion on Women's Narratives, Catholic Theologies, Violence Against Women, and The Vagina Monologues.[28] On 10 April 2011 the first performance of The Vagina Monologues was performed in Wolff Auditorium at Gonzaga.[29]

The Cardinal Newman Society (CNS) launched a campaign to stop The Vagina Monologues performances and a public reading, on Catholic Campuses, across the United States was a success. A then-record-low 22 Catholic colleges and universities hosted The Vagina Monologues in February and March, a significant decline from 27 performances or readings in 2005, 29 in 2004, and 32 in 2003.[30] As of 2010, the Cardinal Newman Society reported that there were 14 Catholic colleges and universities hosting the Monologues. It was later noted that in 2010, only 13 catholic institutions hosted the Monologues.[27]

The Cardinal Newman Society reported the presentation after much protest, stating that with Gonzaga University's production of the performance on campus, the count of productions on Catholic campuses in 2011 had risen to 14: ten of those schools being Jesuit institutions.[30]